Thursday, May 16, 2013

Francisco Liriano, take 2

Disclaimer: I am not in favor of the Liriano contract. I think we outbid ourselves on a dude who is way too wild to be a starter. He's potentially a great strikeout specialist out of the pen, but he will be walking far too many dudes to be allowed to see a lineup more than once.

But he's here and he's starting, so let's talk about this optimistically.

63% of his pitches were for strikes; nothing strange here, career norm is 62%.

First pitch strikes: also 63%. This one is a spike. Career norm is 55% and MLB average is 59%.

He went 3-0 on two guys, and 0-2 on six.

Average speed on the fastball was 92.8 mph, which is right around the ~93 mph he averaged last season. This is very good to see. It's also worth noting that almost all of his fastballs were two-seamers, which builds on a trend he got into last season. This shows that he's no longer trying to overpower hitters (though a 93mph average could still be considered powerful), but instead aiming to sink and move the ball. Slider and change-up both solid.

Finally, let's look at the Mets' lineup he saw...

53.3% of pitches were swung at. That sucks, Mets! You're helping a guy out! Normally, batters will swing at about 45% of Liriano's pitches. 70% of the time, batters are able to hold up on pitches he throws out of the zone; the Mets only took 60% of those. So yes, they were part of the story here.

But look, I am encouraged by the velocity, and there is no doubt a road map to success here: get ahead in the count. If Liriano can command the sinker for a first pitch strike, he will absolutely get more swings and misses when he drops the slider out of the zone.